At 1500 rating, the Arena Conquest Points Cap will now be 1800 (up from 1350), while the Rated Battleground Conquest cap will be 2200 (up from 1650). As always, when your rating increases, so will your cap.

Plan accordingly!

Click the cut to read about LFR and daily quests!

LFR and Raid Preparation

Draztal

So then, please answer this for me. Lets say everyone else in my raidteam makes the choice to do LFR, because better gear obviously helps progression. I choose not to do LFR, simply because i do not want to do it. Now can you honestly with a straight face tell me that i am not holding my teams progress back?

Thats right, you cant.

I can. Your kill will be slowed by a fraction of time (seconds). But by no stretch of the imagination your team will be meeting enrage timers unless you're just undergeared. Once you're at the point to which the content is tuned for, the only thing preventing your raid from killing the boss is perfecting the execution. The very tight dps races are on Heroic (Gara'jal the Spiritbinder Heroic comes to mind as an example) and in that setting unless you're at the very top of progression, LFR gear will do you no good (it's very likely you'll need a fair amount of normal gear to take him down).

So there's why doing LFR - or dailies - isn't a choice. We've got the option of better gear, then we'll do it. We need it. I was in big need for a weapon until yesterday, so I'd run every opportunity to get one (Gate of the Setting Sun and LFR). I needed the upgrades certain factions offered on hitting exalted, so I did the dailies. The only choice involved here is my choice for raiding, and this includes pressure to not waste the time of my fellow raiders by not pulling the maximum of my char. We raid because we want to progress, not because we like to wipe to enrage timers and gear dependent mechanics. Of course competition is part of raiding, even on server level, but this isn't the sole reason why a raid wants to advance quickly. So yes - almost anything that improves performance will be felt mandatory not only by hardcore, but also semi hardcore raider folks.

And that's part of what implies picking that particular play style. If you aim to be hardcore/semi hardcore, of course, you'll need (and want) every possible gear upgrade you can get. Because that's what you've chosen to do. You want to be at the top of your game. So it makes sense you'll go out of your way to pick every possible upgrade lying ahead in hopes of edging your competition.

That's precisely what competition is about. Getting the upper hand over everyone else. And for that, I'd argue it's just logical you'll go and do everything that's available. For Heroic raiders, though, LFR will slowly fade away as you replace your gear with Heroic gear. Because come the next tier, you won't have a reason to go there. On this tier you'll experience the same already with Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring LFRs. For those slots you've got gear from normal Mogu'shan Vaults, there'll be no reason to go and visit HoF and TES LFRs (when those are open), since it'll still be higher item level than that of LFR.

I find it rather mind-boggling that the idea of competitiveness coming from blue posts can't get beyond getting realm/world firsts. For one thing, there are lots of things people would probably consider as 'realm firsts' that aren't recognised as such. For example, the vast majority of world/realm first kills are going to come from hardcore guilds running 16-20+ hours per week. Guilds running 2 or 3 3-4 hour raids per week may well consider themselves in a separate bracket with others with similar time limits.

By this definition, I should be able to walk up to Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant, Sebastian Vettel, Roger Federer... (you get the idea, I guess) and tell them I'm being super competitive in their respective sports because I'm competing in a local league putting a fraction of the time they are. The thing is, when looking at the grand scheme, I'm not. Not even close. There's a reason why the world first quality guilds usually get world firsts, and it's not just skill, there's also commitment, coordination and a myriad of factors.

Of course, if we start removing factors that we can't or don't want to meet, even playing rock-paper-scissors with your friend on the middle of Times Square is competitive, but the moment the discussion goes down that path, it's very unlikely we'll reach any kind of agreement on what's being discussed.

However, for people with less ability to perform DPS/other roles, it makes no doubt to me that they are indeed having trouble on enrage timers and such, or at the very least be close enough that they'll absolutely want any possible upgrade.

When we raided during the first week with raids full of 463~ ilvl geared characters enrage timers felt quite tight, and we're a world-class guild. I can safely assume that a raid of players that perform sub-par, despite their much higher ilvl, will not be dishing out much more DPS/healing than our raids back in 463 gear, and will probably encounter a lot of trouble with enrage timers or other numbers-related issues rather than mechanics issues.

Isn't this another reason why it'd do good to those players that feel they need the gear to instead improve their dps rotations, talents, gearing choices, etc, so that they can make the most benefit of their class rather than relying on getting higher gear? (I'm talking about those encounters that aren't dps checks, of course, at some point the developers expect the raid to be at a certain treshold of gear, and if that's not the case it's very likely you just won't be able to move forward until you get more upgrades)

Of course, not everyone can play at the 100% of their spec, but the jump those players may see from wearing all 463 to 476 compared to the jump from perfecting their rotations (working on them, or whichever area they might be failing in) would probably yield a greater result, and one that will outlast gear replacements in the long run; you're not likely to lose skill once you've acquired it after all.There're varying levels of competitiveness. The folks playing at a local club are competitive. But on a different level (of skill, most often) than professional players. This is kind of the same, there're competitive guilds out there that just can't perform at the level of world first guilds. Are they less important? No.

But coming here and saying that you need to do all this because you are competitive and complaining about it's just weird. That's why it's called competition. You need to edge your opposition one way or the other. There're many ways to gear up these days, and you don't need to use them all, but of course, if you do, you'll gear up quicker.

Asking, in consequence, to shut down those things you don't want to do (and therefore reduce the quality of this game) just because you don't want to use those venues cannot be seen as a benefit (especially by the players that do use those).

Of course, in a world where you compete against other guilds, folks using those venues will most likely progress faster than you in the same timeframe, that's competition. And that's part of choosing which playstyle you want to pursue.

Dailies and the VP Cap

Taepsilum

I understand that when you invest some of your time into dailies, ideally you want to be fully rewarded, but if you’re already capped, I’m just guessing but that probably means that you’ve probably got some of your valor points by running dungeons/raids and didn’t do enough dailies to get the level of reputation required to be able to purchase more gear.

I think planning for this kind of situation is also part of gameplay, trying to be efficient and predicting future purchases is always a good idea.

But I do think that this idea has some value and of course, there are many other things that can cause a player to cap on valor points, like levelling a specific reputation and getting items from some raid bosses that are equivalent or better than those that you were planning to get from rep, running too many dungeons instead of doing dailies, etc…

I’ll pass this idea along to our development team and we'll see what they have to say about it.Sorry if I interpreted the OP as reaching the 3k hard cap, but yes of course you can obviously hit the weekly cap much faster, I guess most people that are interested in getting valor points do.Like I said, this idea is reasonable and I shared it with the devs, as soon as we have any information on their thoughts regarding this subject, we'll let you know.

Updated Enchant Procs

Daxxarri

Gearing Up Offspecs

Draztal

First of all, there's a gear vendor at Townlong Steppes that may come in handy: Supplier Xin (at Longying outpost) sells green 408 items for gold, so if you have DPS gear that's still below that, you can go and pick upgrades there.

Following that, you can queue on scenarios. These can reward a 463 item usable by your class. And of course, if you meet the item level requirements, both heroic dungeons and LFR are great sources to get more gear for it.

Comments

Comment by DevilesDog

That new mount looks amazing, but it kinda makes the mount reward from hitting exalted with all Pandaren factions quite moot. And I love the change to the CP cap.

Comment by Mikula

on 2012-11-06T15:48:02-06:00

I'm guessing the Horde version is just the blue bits coloured red?

Comment by Buggywox

on 2012-11-06T16:10:11-06:00

Unlike the 100 mount rewards, both factions get the same color this time.

Nope.

Comment by Sahako

on 2012-11-06T17:04:34-06:00

This mount must be a joke (a bad one)... though I'm pretty sure we're not in April...50 mount reward was cool. 100 mount reward was okay, though Argent's Dragonhawk was better. But, this? No way...

Comment by DELCholo71796

on 2012-11-06T17:22:56-06:00

This mount must be a joke (a bad one)... though I'm pretty sure we're not in April...50 mount reward was cool. 100 mount reward was okay, though Argent's Dragonhawk was better. But, this? No way...

It would be cool if other kites weren't obtainable so much more easily

Comment by Excelion

on 2012-11-06T19:00:59-06:00

Does the kite really work as a ground mount? It says 'this is a flying mount on the tooltip'. Maybe it's just a pun, lol.

And yeah it looks a lot, lot better than the Pandaren Ambassador one.

Comment by Primehorn

on 2012-11-06T19:58:16-06:00

blizzard need to STOP with the reskinning of ugly mounts for achievements that are not so easy to do.in fact maybe stop reskinning as much as they do in general. im sure they can be more creative then this for rewards.there are MANY! creatures in the world they can use to make into mounts. massively reproduced reskinned and not so rewarding mounts.yak=ramgoat= ramshado-pan tiger=tigercrane= hawkstridervoltron=tiger

very hard to get an you hope would make you feel excited to have.galleons sadle=kodo( this ones really bad. for something thats prob insanely lucky to get...kodo's ? ugh)panda phoenix= ashes

an now for the cloud serpents, and i know it might be the theme for the expansion but when is it enough of them?10 maybe 20? will prob see 30 by the 4th major exansion patch. the panda racial turtles are nice an limited. goblins and worgens got 2...what was that all about?im not gona go into previous expansion reskinning cause we know what happened there. if they want suggestions for mounts i can givem a few pointers. but 150 mounts takes some good farming an time. the 100 mount to me was discouraging if you ask me, and now this ones really worse. perhaps something like the new swift windsteed would make us happy? not paying 25$ for a cool mount.

Comment by fraxing

on 2012-11-06T20:05:13-06:00

looks funny, but the dude who surf it when you do the daily s, that one is most irritating .:P

Comment by rivellangel

on 2012-11-06T20:55:50-06:00

A 200 mount award would be nice as something to aim for rather than being retrospectively awarded mounts.

Comment by BahamutBBob

on 2012-11-06T21:23:02-06:00

The way reps work in MoP makes me want to quit the game. I don't raid. I started to raid again at the end of Cata, but my guild has not raided yet in MoP, and probably won't start. VP is the best way for me to get gear, but it's all locked out by rep. The funny thing is, I'd probably do all 25 dailies if that were still the cap. I just don't have it in me to do all the dailies every day.

Plus, having to get each rep up on alts just to get VP gear, when we cap it faster.

I really don't like the basic systems they put in place in MoP. They did it to extend the content, but in my mind it's bull. The fact that they don't seem to realize that it was a pretty bad choice hurts. I know I'm not super hard core (I was in Vanilla) or even slightly hard core, but still. Their choices are about to lose them $15/mo. I'm sticking it out to 5.1. If it doesn't "click" by then, I'm gone.

Comment by jamesjiao

on 2012-11-06T21:50:16-06:00

They should convert any valor points from quests and etc. to gold when a toon reaches its weekly VP limit.

Comment by Adoxe

on 2012-11-07T01:15:57-06:00

blizzard need to STOP with the reskinning of ugly mounts for achievements that are not so easy to do.in fact maybe stop reskinning as much as they do in general. im sure they can be more creative then this for rewards.there are MANY! creatures in the world they can use to make into mounts. massively reproduced reskinned and not so rewarding mounts.yak=ramgoat= ramshado-pan tiger=tigercrane= hawkstridervoltron=tiger

very hard to get an you hope would make you feel excited to have.galleons sadle=kodo( this ones really bad. for something thats prob insanely lucky to get...kodo's ? ugh)panda phoenix= ashes

an now for the cloud serpents, and i know it might be the theme for the expansion but when is it enough of them?10 maybe 20? will prob see 30 by the 4th major exansion patch. the panda racial turtles are nice an limited. goblins and worgens got 2...what was that all about?im not gona go into previous expansion reskinning cause we know what happened there. if they want suggestions for mounts i can givem a few pointers. but 150 mounts takes some good farming an time. the 100 mount to me was discouraging if you ask me, and now this ones really worse. perhaps something like the new swift windsteed would make us happy? not paying 25$ for a cool mount.

I'm sorry but none of the mounts is a "reskin".They're all new model that use the old skeletons, that's why goat uses the same animations as a ram.A reskin would be same looking model with a different color, so please get your facts straight :p

Comment by verduran

on 2012-11-07T05:07:50-06:00

blizzard need to STOP with the reskinning of ugly mounts for achievements that are not so easy to do.in fact maybe stop reskinning as much as they do in general. im sure they can be more creative then this for rewards.there are MANY! creatures in the world they can use to make into mounts. massively reproduced reskinned and not so rewarding mounts.yak=ramgoat= ramshado-pan tiger=tigercrane= hawkstridervoltron=tiger

very hard to get an you hope would make you feel excited to have.galleons sadle=kodo( this ones really bad. for something thats prob insanely lucky to get...kodo's ? ugh)panda phoenix= ashes

an now for the cloud serpents, and i know it might be the theme for the expansion but when is it enough of them?10 maybe 20? will prob see 30 by the 4th major exansion patch. the panda racial turtles are nice an limited. goblins and worgens got 2...what was that all about?im not gona go into previous expansion reskinning cause we know what happened there. if they want suggestions for mounts i can givem a few pointers. but 150 mounts takes some good farming an time. the 100 mount to me was discouraging if you ask me, and now this ones really worse. perhaps something like the new swift windsteed would make us happy? not paying 25$ for a cool mount.

As for cloud serpents, there are actually only 11 models available atm.5 colors of the base model (Crimson, Onyx, Golden, Azure,Jade);3 colors of the thundering model (Ruby, August, Jade);2 colors of the heavenly model (Crimson, Onyx);and 1 astral model.

Imho the 50 mount was meh, however the 100 mount has been one of the mounts I like a lot on my blood elves. Can't say I like the 150 mount either so I'm hoping they would put in something better for the 200 mount reward (sitting at 213 mounts atm)

As for the ground mounts, the scorpion is good for the alliance, the yaks are okay (though a bit too small imo), the goats are meh,, the shado-pan tigers could definitely use better color schemes, the cranes are gorgeous even though they use the same skeleton as the hawkstriders (similiar to how good the firehawks look with the old protodrake skeletons)

Comment by robbiedehand

on 2012-11-07T06:01:53-06:00

it nice they finally add a new mount achievement but only 150 (and not 150 and 200) is to little most fanatic mount collectors where past 150 even before mop.

Comment by vindurza

on 2012-11-07T07:37:30-06:00

the color is very nice it could easily suit a druid or maybe a mistweaver monk

Comment by ZeroEdgeir

on 2012-11-07T09:45:00-06:00

Hopefully they get us a 200 mount achievement soon.

If you remove all the Blizzard Store and Rare Drop mounts from my count, only counting rep, quest, achievement, and profession-sourced mounts, I got a total of 148 (28 mounts are rare drops from kills/spawns/events or from the Blizzard Store/RaF/SoR program, that I currently have). And I don't have even all the achievement mounts of WotLK yet (still missing both Frost Wyrms and the Ironbound Proto).

150 is definitely underwhelming. 200 for 5.2?

Comment by Primehorn

on 2012-11-07T15:29:11-06:00

reskinning a skeleton is what i meant. not a paint job.the expansion just started an we will se more serpents. just like we seen more drakes an proto's

Comment by Rainemard

blizzard need to STOP with the reskinning of ugly mounts for achievements that are not so easy to do.

Yes, all those MoP mounts you listed are reskins (and in the case of Shado-pan, an effing awesome one). But none of them are related to achievements. The kite skeleton is similar to a flying carpet, but they're not the same. As far as I know the kite is a new skeleton/skin.

Also, easy is a relative term. For someone like me, who's been generally keeping up with reputations and mounts throughout the expansions, 150 mounts is basically guaranteed.

It's funny that you mention the windsteed, which I think is one of the ugliest horned-horse-with-a-baboon's-butt-for-a-face i've ever seen.(I think they were going for a Kirin look, but good god that's the best they could do?)

I'd much rather surf another kite.

Comment by akilleuss

on 2012-11-08T06:55:24-06:00

make this a Kite or dragonhawk at 150 alot of people still need a few more mounts let us choose which we want with a Quest item or put the kite at 200